Trump Jr./Russian lawyer meeting: Jr. knew info was part of Russian Gov effort

[Nyvin]

Let's not forget...back before this February,  we had multiple people in the Trump Administration/Campaign that said NOBODY associated with Trump ever met with ANYONE associated with Russia.

Lol

[Nyvin]

Man checking on Twitter and other social media Trumpers are really trying to somehow make Jr a hero for being transparent. An that right there is why they chose Trump cause they now the RW will twist itself into a pretzel to defend "their side" no matter how blantenly bad

Good grief.  He only released the emails because he knew the Times was about to do so.

Plus of course the e-mails confirm that, contrary to the spin being put about, there was absolutely no crime committed.

Pete you aren't American so you are probably unaware that intent is a crime here

Intent to do what? Gather opposition research from a foreigner. That isn't a crime.

Campaign finance laws forbid the solicitation of anything of value from a foreign national.    Actually it is a crime.

[Nyvin]

Kushner's influence has diminished after the Comey firing. Bannon took on Kushner against everyone's advice and won. Bannon's back in favor, and expect his role to grow. Bannon is a classic "son of a b****" that you want in your corner when the temperature rises and everyone else runs for cover.

I will add regarding legality that it probably depends on what was actually exchanged, which we do not know. As far as we know, there may have been nothing exchanged and the collusion attempt failed. Talking is not something of value.

I don't think it matters, the email shows intent.

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"Information" is a rather vague word. I think the idea that speech is a "thing of value" is quite a stretch. The emails do open the door to the possibility that something of tangible value was exchanged, though. Certainly, if services such as information gathering were offered to and accepted by the campaign, that would be something of value.

Opposition research (or in this case...hacked emails...) are most definitely a thing of value.   And Don Jr's response of "I love it" is really all you need to show intent.  Whether or not they acquired what they sought is pretty redundant.  

[Nyvin]

Trump's son, son-in-law, and campaign manager specifically went to a meeting where they believed they could obtain damaging information on Clinton sourced from the Russian government.  

And?

Contrary to all the foaming at the mouth hysterics talking about this that isn't illegal, much less 'treason' as lots of unhinged lefties are claiming.

If someone walked into a bank and said to the teller "I'm robbing this place, give me all your money"  and then walked out after that didn't work....would you say "well hey, it was just him talking!"?

[Nyvin]

Functionally, I'm curious, how do you defend Trump's speeches about the Hillary oppo and say that he wasn't aware of a meeting in his own building, with Don Jr, Manafort, and Kushner? He promised a press conference about Hillary's emails that very night and tweeted about it 15 minutes after the meeting. The information seems highly correlated with what the email said.

Basically, this feels like a smoking gun that Trump was open to collusion or actually did commit collusion with Russia's government. But to believe that the Podesta emails were unrelated to this - especially given Junior's statement of "later in the summer" is to defy explanation. You'll remember Roger Stone tweeted that it would be soon "Podesta's time in the barrel." It definitely feels like Trumpland knew ahead of time and were clear on the provenance of these Wikileaks. (Senior doesn't do email, for the record. It seems that this was handled at the top levels).

Basically, the set of facts between the Podesta emails, them being from the Russian government, and the timing (and backing up of that timing by Don Jr's emails) as well as Natalia Veselnitskay being linked to the Russian government implies very strongly that there is a plausible, even probable link.

This is an archive of Natalia Veselnitskaya's Facebook page. Lots of anti-Trump (and anti-Putin) images there. That added to the curious matter of how she got a Visa to get into the US after previously being refused. I think this is the smoking gun, I agree with you there. Its the smoking gun that indicates that this whole "Russia is interfering in our elections and colluding with the Trump campaign" was cooked up prior to June of last year.

That then obviously links in with all the other goings on later that were blamed on the Russians'  as these were obviously part of the same scheme. That would be why the DNC refused access to the FBI their servers to confirm that the hacking had taken place because there never had been a hacking, just a leak to be blamed on 'der Rushans'.

And let's not forget that the first request to the FISA court by the Obama admin to spy on the Trump campaign came in June 2016, shortly after this meeting. So this was not only a setup but was a set up designed to be a piece of theatre for the FISA court.

The latest revelations are clearly not a nothing burger. They are strong evidence of a key part of the Obama administration's plan to set up a bogus 'Russia/Trump' conspiracy narrative as an excuse to misuse the security services to spy on and undermine a political opponent.

I've seen pretzels twisted into less knots

What's laughable is the theory that this 'investigation' is an honest down the line search for the truth. What is not in dispute was that there has been investigations into this "Trump/Russia collusion theory" going back to June of last year.

Now what are the two usual reasons why this type of investigation of a politician or a political campaign? The tow usual reasons for such an investigation are

a) A legitimate investigation launched because of genuine concerns
b) A politically motivated witch hunt

So does the evidence in this case point to the reason for this series of investigations being a) or b)? What does the evidence suggest is the reason on the balance of probability? Because the evidence keeps stacking up that its b). If anyone wants to put forward evidence that a) was the reason the investigations were launched then lets hear it.

The Trump administration has repeatedly denied having ANY meeting with ANY Russian officials.

[Nyvin]

Don't know if it's been posted here yet, but Cernovich is postulating that Obama arranged this meeting so the lawyer could wiretap Trump Tower while she was there

LOL.
The Deplorables will swallow this whole.
I mean, if you can get them to believe that Obama was a Muslim and born outside the USA, then you can get those bird-brains to believe anything.

Says a man who has been pushing the evidence free Trump/Russia collusion conspiracy theory for months.

At this point what exactly would "evidence" be to you?   A video of Putin personally handing Trump a black briefcase or something?

What does it take for you to believe there is a "possibility" of Trump-Russian collusion?

[Nyvin]

lol at these grifters

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Let's compare it to his travel/security expenses

[Nyvin]

It's hilarious how they transitioned from "We NEVER met with anyone from Russia!!!"

To

"Well, yeah, we met with Russia, but we didn't do anything with them!"

To

"Well yeah, we had a meeting to discuss opposition research with them, but so what?"

And they really expect everyone to overlook these transitions with not even an after thought.  

What a group of clowns.

[Nyvin]

It's hilarious how they transitioned from "We NEVER met with anyone from Russia!!!"

Who said that? Nobody ever said that they never met anyone from Russia. Stop rewriting history to fit with your agenda.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/02/trump-teams-many-many-denials-contacts-russia/98625780/

[Nyvin]

It's hilarious how they transitioned from "We NEVER met with anyone from Russia!!!"

Who said that? Nobody ever said that they never met anyone from Russia. Stop rewriting history to fit with your agenda.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/02/trump-teams-many-many-denials-contacts-russia/98625780/

You're conflating denial of contact between the campaign and the Russian government with denial of contact between the campaign and 'anyone from Russia'. Lots of people are from Russia, that doesn't make them minions of Putin. The lobbyists who turned up for the meeting were by all accounts NOT representatives of the Russian government so where's the contradiction?

I'm guessing now you're going to make the argument that Sergey Kislyak and Natalia Veselnitskaya have nothing to do with the Russian government, lol.